Islamists And Sex Change Operations

Iran's government will now pay for them. I've long wondered why Christianists, whose hostility to gender non-conformity is almost as intense as the Islamists', don't support this more. Gender ambiguity or transgression - integral to nature, protected and defended by civilized societies - is anathema to the fundamentalist mind. Some fundamentalists even panic if men pee sitting down, for Pete's sake. So isn't surgically changing the gender of some transgendered people the perfect fusion of transgendered rights and religious orthodoxy? It clears everything up, the way fundies like their universe. No confusion. Just chop it off and marry a man; or become a man and marry a woman (or several). Ayatollah Khomeini approved of sex change operations a quarter century ago. And here's a link to a new documentary about several Iranian men who have become women - in order to wear veils. It has a fitting title: "Be Like Others."

Transgendered identity and heterosexual normativity are allies. In many cases, only a physical barrier exists to transgendered people being fully integrated into heterosexual norms. But gay people, by our very existence, violate such norms. And our persistence in not wanting a cure - or seeing its desirability in any way - is what drives those who hate us crazy. We like our gender. We just express it differently.

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